Why a Toaster Is a Design Triumph Last year I fell in love with a toaster. It looks like most others. A brushed, stainless-steel housing. Four slots, to accommodate the whole family’s bread-provisioning needs. It is alluring but modest, perched … Continue reading A Bit More
Artisanal Tacos on Paper Plates In June, the venerable Katz’s Delicatessen, one of America’s oldest restaurants, opened its first satellite in 119 years. For the location, the proprietors chose the windowless basement of a shopping mall in Brooklyn, across from … Continue reading The rise of food halls
Who Do We Think Of as Poor? Several years ago, during a harsh Detroit winter, I swallowed my pride and applied for food stamps. I wasn’t sure I’d qualify, but I knew three things. I had little money in the … Continue reading Is poverty a white issue?
Americans’ Bizarre Relationship With the Color of Their Food There are many parts of the world where, for much of human history, food was likely a dull visual affair. Take Tuscany, the culinarily renowned region of Italy that the writer … Continue reading Visionary food
Taxes on Unhealthy Food Are Ineffective and Hurt the Poor Over the past decade or so, paternalistic objections to fat, sugar, and salt have gained traction among policymakers, mostly at the state and local levels of government. Predictably, new taxes … Continue reading Regressive taxes on poor people
Austerity bites? Less chocolate for your money as packets shrink Confectionery firm Mars is shrinking the pack size of favourite sweets including Maltesers, M&M’s and Minstrels by up to 15% in the latest example of an industry trend that is … Continue reading The effects of shrinkflation
How Behavioral Economics Can (and Can’t) Boost Health As the bestsellers started piling up, from 2008’s Predictably Irrational and Nudge to 2011’s Thinking Fast, Thinking Slow, the buzz around behavioral economics — the science and practice of nudging people toward … Continue reading The challenge of behavioral change
